Consummate French Holiday for Picky Eaters

We were bumping along a narrow asphalt road on a wind-swept volcanic plateau when Andre Fromant spotted the white caps of an edible mushroom in the meadow ahead. Traces of the morning’s snow remained in the shadows of a few small boulders. Shafts of sunlight broke through the clouds constantly gathering and dispersing above us.

It was early October in the Massif Central, the time for hunting deer and boar and fungi. The weather was like a highly strung, overtired child, verging now on laughter, now on tears.

Fromant, a sculptor, poet, expert on ancient cave dwellers, wintertime ski patrolman and autumnal mushroom guide, steered his battered van toward the meadow.

“It’s the long-haired coprin ,” he announced. “ Coprinus comatus . Quite delicious when young. We’ll take some back to the hotel for lunch.” Fromant is 41 years old, bearded, agile as a goat, but gnarled like the countryside in this hardscrabble Haute Loire mountain region 100 miles southwest of Lyon. He bounded from the van and began gathering the young, three-inch-tall mushrooms with their shaggy white caps.

He avoided the mature mushrooms, which were beginning to blacken and drip an inky liquid as their gills dissolved, the trait that gave them the mycological nickname “Shaggy Ink Cap.” But the young ones, he assured us, breaking one of the mushrooms open with his fingernails to reveal a firm, pinkish white flesh, were good eating. He held them up for us to sniff. Mushroom hunting involves a lot of sniffing, scratching, fondling and even--under expert guidance only--nibbling.

Just as Fromant had promised, we were soon back at our hotel, the marvelous thatched-roof, 10-room Auberge Le Pre Bossu in the tiny village of Moudeyres. The hotel stands several hundred yards up from the village, near the crest of a treeless, steeply sloping hill that the natives call Pre Bossu--”hunchback’s meadow.” It wasn’t long before we were munching on the long-haired coprins .

My wife and I, our two children and our dog (who enjoyed the company of the hotel’s resident Irish wolfhound) had discovered the small hotel last year when I was in the area doing research for another article about families in the nearby town of Chambon-sur-Lignon. During World War II, the people of this town saved the lives of thousands of Jewish children, hiding them from German occupiers. The Haute Loire, the rugged source of the Loire River, was a legendary stronghold of the French Resistance.

But this year, the hotel owners, Belgians Carlos and Marleen Grootaert, had invited us back for what they called “A Mushroom Weekend.” For the past eight years during October, they have hosted these combination mushroom-gathering, culinary weekends. For 1,200 francs--about $200 a person with discounts for children--they offer two nights in their hotel and meals, with breakfasts and full lunches and dinners featuring at least one wild mushroom course. Included in the price are several guided hikes in nearby fields and woods to look for mushrooms of all varieties. We found and identified 108 varieties in our two days of hunting.

It is an ideal arrangement for food lovers who like their multi-course meals spaced with a little vigorous exercise. The food tastes better and the soul rests easier. Looking for the most treasured varieties of mushrooms, such as the delicious, meaty cepes de Bordeaux , involves a lot of foraging under low limbs and leaf cover.

Similar mushroom weekends are offered in late September and October in several regions of France. While popular with the French, such tours so far have not caught on with Americans and other foreign tourists. This makes it less likely that you will meet many fluent English speakers used to dealing with Americans. On the other hand, since most meals and activities are in groups, the tours offer excellent opportunities to meet French people.

Closer to Paris, it is a particularly popular October pastime in the heavily wooded Orne region of Normandy, where at least five hotels offer les week-ends champignons , often with mushroom cooking courses to accompany the usual collecting and identifying programs.

The Manoir Du Lys Hotel in the Normandy spa town of Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, for example, offers a weekend priced at $400 for two persons that includes a morning course on how to prepare duck with wild mushrooms.

Back in Moudeyres, Carlos Grootaert is one of the best-known chefs in the region. Le Pre Bossu is the only restaurant within 50 miles to rate a star in the Guide Michelin. In the 15 years he has been in Moudeyres, Grootaert has also become a specialist in the preparation of local mushrooms.

When Andre Fromant presented him with a basket of our freshly harvested long-haired coprins , for example, Grootaert went immediately to work on them.

Brushing the fungi clean (but not washing them), he sliced each mushroom length-wise and arranged the slices artistically on a small salad plate. He topped them with grilled sesame seeds flavored with hazelnut oil and balsamic vinegar. As a final colorful touch, he added a few fresh salmon eggs.

The raw mushrooms were followed by green-lentil gnocchi , a pasta dish made using the green lentils grown nearby; roast local farm chicken cooked with delicate wild “fairy ring” mushrooms ( marasmius oreades ); a wedge of Cheddarlike cantal cheese from the region, and a splendid hot fruit dish of blueberries and pears.

Other impressive mushroom dishes served during the weekend included a magnificent quiche-- tarte aux cepes et noisettes du pays du Mezenc --made from freshly gathered cepes mushrooms and hazelnuts from the forest of nearby Mt. Mezenc, a 5,700-foot extinct volcano that is the watershed between the Loire and Rhone river valleys, and another Grootaert speciality, wild mushroom stew with cepes and calf kidneys topped with quail eggs.

Marleen Grootaert, a talented decorator who has turned the rustic old thatched-roof farmhouse into a warm and welcoming inn, contributes to the food pleasures with her Flemish kramiek raisin cake for breakfast and her homemade elder wine (made with the flowers, not the berries, of the elder tree) served as an aperitif preceding meals. She also has another treat in her cupboards, a brandy liquor she flavors with lemon verbena.

Mushroom weekends are often sponsored by local societies dedicated to spotting, studying and eating the fungi. The French Mycological Society (La Societe Francaise des Mycologues) is headquartered in Paris and lists 50 affiliated chapters throughout France. Many sponsor fall excursions for mushroom hunting, although they tend to be on the more serious scientific level.

Going mushrooming without an expert guide is not advised. Among the many edible mushrooms are several toxic or even deadly varieties, sometimes very similar in appearance to the safe ones. Every year, dozens of people in France become seriously ill or die from eating poisonous mushrooms.

France requires pharmacists to have a basic knowledge of poisonous and nonpoisonous fungi. In the autumn, many drugstores display models of mushrooms in their windows and distribute posters and pamphlets showing the different varieties.

It is very helpful--but not essential--to speak French in order to enjoy the mushroom hunts. Fortunately, Latin is still the universal language for mushrooms. In all countries, a boletus edulis is the same big, delicious mushroom although it is called a cep in England and the United States; cepe de Bordeaux in France; porcini in Italy, and steinpilz in Germany.

The best idea is to buy one or two good pocket mushroom guides before coming to France. All basic mushroom books will include the Latin name for the fungi and show either photographs or drawings of the main varieties.

The guidebooks can also be purchased in the several English-language bookstores in Paris or London. Among the best of the British books are the MacDonald Encyclopedia of Mushrooms and Toadstools (MacDonald Encylopedias, London) and the very handy “Letts Pocket Guide to Mushrooms & Other Fungi” (Letts Publishers, London).

The Letts book is more fun because it also includes the popular names for the mushrooms. This way you learn that the scaly-topped mushroom known in Latin by the name strobilomyces strobilaceus ( floccopus ) is commonly known to naturalists as “Old Man in the Woods.” Likewise, the wickedly poisonous amanita phalloides is identified by its more common name, “Death Cap.”

For those with a basic understanding of French, it is also a good idea to buy a small French pocket guide such as “Les Champignons Comestibles des pres and des champs” (Paris Editions Rustica). This allows the fungi finder to compare the often amusing ways in which the different cultures name their mushrooms. For example, the delicate gray craterellus cornucopioides is translated literally into English as the “horn of plenty,” but in French is commonly called “Trompette des Morts” (trumpet of the dead).

GUIDEBOOK

Mushroom Weekends in France

Getting there: Moudeyres, in the Haute Loire department of the Auvergne region of south-central France, is about eight hours from Paris by car. From Lyon, take auto route A47 southwest to St Etienne. From St. Etienne, take the N88 southwest to Yssingeaux. About eight miles after Yssingeaux, exit in the small town of Le Pertius and head south on highway D28 five miles to St. Julien Chapteuil. At St. Julien Chapteuil, pick up the D49 six miles south to Laussonne. At Laussonne, change to D36 about four miles to Moudeyres.

By train, it’s two hours from Paris on the high-speed TGV to Lyon; three hours by car from Lyon. Or three hours from Paris to St. Etienne, and a two-hour drive.

When to go: Mushroom season in France is generally late September to the end of October.

Mushroom weekends: Reservations are recommended since hotels may cancel mushroom weekends for lack of bookings. All hotels feature meals with mushrooms. Rates based on Friday arrival for Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner, Sunday breakfast and lunch and Sunday afternoon departure, and include mushroom-gathering activities with an expert. Some hotels also include a cooking class.

Where to stay: Auberge Le Pre Bossu, Moudeyres 43150 Laussonne, France. Telephone 011-33-7-105-1070 or fax 011-33-7-105-1021. October mushroom weekends are $216 per person, including room for two nights and all meals (Friday dinner through Sunday lunch; beverages not included). Mushroom hunts are arranged in the company of regional experts.

In other regions:

Normandy (Orne): Hotel Du Bois Joli, 12 Ave. Philippe Rozier, 61140 Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, France, 011-33-3-337-9277. Owner Claudine Gatti offers a mushroom program every weekend in October in her 20-room hotel. Rates: $306 for two people, two nights. Manoir Du Lys, 61140 Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, 011-33-3-337-8069. The 23-room hotel begins mushroom-hunting programs the last weekend of September through October. Rates: $450 for two, includes a cooking course.

Hotel Normandie, Ave. La Ferte Mace, 61140 Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, 011-33-3-330-8016. Rates: $270 per person, all weekends in October.

Hotel Lutetia, Blvd. Paul Chalvet, 61140 Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, 011-33-3-337-9477. Rates: $306 per person, from the last weekend of September through October; 34 rooms.

Nouvel Hotel, Ave. Albert Christophe, 61140 Tesse-la-Madeleine, 011-33-3-337-8122. Rates: $216 for two people, second and third weekends in October; 30 rooms.

Bordeaux: Hotellerie Chateau Caniac, Route de Branis, 33670 Creon, France, 011-33-5-623-2085. The 21-room hotel, about 14 miles east of the city of Bordeaux, will organize weekend mushroom collection on request, from mid-September through October. Rates: $270-$360 a night per room, double occupancy.

Perigord: Mushrooming organized on request by the Office du Tourisme, 16 Rue Du President Wilson, 24000 Perigueux, 011-33-5-353-4435. Lodging is in one of several hotels in Villefranche. Rates: $198 per person, last weekend in September and first weekend in October. Includes visit to the mushroom museum and cepes market in Villefranche du Perigord, about 60 miles east of Bordeaux.

For more information: Contact the French Government Tourist Office, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 303, Beverly Hills 90212, (213) 271-6665 or 272-2661.